Urban/Rural Geography & Regional/Development Studies

Hung Kung-chi

In 1984, three years before the lifting of martial law, Professors Chang Chang-yi(張長義) and Wang Chiu-yuan(王秋原) of the Department of Geography at National Taiwan University, together with Professor Jack F. Williams of Michigan State University, published an article titled “Land Settlement and Development: A Case Study from Taiwan” in The Journal of Developing Areas. Focusing on the upper Dajia(大甲) River watershed, the article examines how the Veterans Affairs Council—under the leadership of Chiang Ching-kuo(蔣經國)—implemented a development plan involving the resettlement of veterans, the cultivation of high-altitude fruit trees, and the establishment of the Lishan(梨山) Guesthouse. The authors argue that this plan led to significant environmental and social problems, including soil erosion, encroachment on Indigenous reserve lands, and the shortened lifespan of the Techi(德基) Reservoir. In their conclusion, they candidly stated to an English-speaking audience that the Taiwanese government had “no stomach” for adopting more stringent measures, such as evicting illegal settlers or curbing irrational land use, thus allowing development to spiral into an impasse. They warned that it was already too late—unless, driven by market forces, climate change were to render apple cultivation in Taiwan’s highland regions unviable. (In retrospect, the authors seem almost prophetic, having foreseen market-driven climate change more than three decades ago.) Otherwise, they believed, the settlers would never willingly relinquish the land they had come to occupy. Perhaps out of such sorrow and frustration, the three geographers chose to document this story as a cautionary tale for other countries in the “Third World.”

For geographers, “development” has always been a thorny term. On the one hand, it reflects a disciplinary legacy of dividing the world into regions and ranking them along a supposedly universal developmental scale—as though the “Third World” could progress to the Second and First Worlds if only the correct remedy were applied. On the other hand, when development gives rise to grave social and environmental consequences, it is often geographers—drawing on their training across both the social and natural sciences—who are among the first to speak out in critique.

This course will explore this complex and often conflicted relationship between geography and development. We will primarily read two texts: Local and Regional Development (2017) by A. Pike et al., and Development Studies and Contemporary Taiwanese Society (2016), edited by Chien Shiuh-shen(簡旭伸) and Wang Jenn-hwan(王振寰). Through the first, we will understand how development is currently conceptualized in Western geographical discourse; through the second, we will examine how these concepts, when carefully adapted, help us better understand the problems Taiwan faces in its pursuit of development—and how Taiwan’s experience, in turn, may contribute to global development studies.

The course requirements include a midterm exam (30%), four midterm assignments (10% each), and a final project (30%). The schedule is roughly divided at the midterm exam on November 17. In the first half, students are expected to thoroughly study the assigned chapters from Local and Regional Development, which will form the basis of the exam. The first two assignments, due on October 6 and 27, respectively, require student groups to produce two short (approximately four-minute) videos. Students should creatively illustrate theoretical concepts proposed by Western geographers with their preferable mathod. The final two assignments following the midterm are designed to help students gradually complete a work they can be proud of. On December 1, students will submit a project outline; on December 22, a draft.

After the midterm, we will turn to Development Studies and Contemporary Taiwanese Society. The final project, due at the end of the semester, is an individual nonfiction work of 8,000 to 12,000 words. Each student must combine historical sources, photographs, interviews, and participant observation to explore how a particular person or group of people experiences and interprets development—what it means to them, and how it shapes their lives. Geography, at its core, is the art of telling the stories of the earth. As students begin their journey into the discipline, this course invites them into a direct confrontation with both the techniques and the poetics of geography.

Let us return to the case of development along the upper Dajia River. While criticizing the government for its inaction, I also hope students will take the time to consider the lives of the veterans sent to those remote mountains—what kind of existence did they lead, what were their motivations, and what hopes sustained them? Were their resettlements truly voluntary? Were they marginalized in lowland society, lacking skills and opportunities, forced to carve a living from the forest, only to be prosecuted by the Forestry Bureau as illegal settlers? In their desperation, did they find themselves dependent on the Veterans Affairs Council, cultivating unfamiliar and unaffordable apples and pears in an alien land?

*This article was originally published on Professor Kuang-Chi Hung’s Facebook page.